The Egg

In case anyone asks, the egg came first. But I want to talk about chicken eggs, the kind you eat, not evolution.

There's an old farmstead in town that was the home of a revolutionary soldier that is famous for being a woman who disguised herself as a man so she could fight for our liberty. For years, decades maybe, I've been driving by this well-known landmark and seeing a sign for "fresh eggs for sale" without giving it much thought. We get our eggs at the supermarket. Well, as part of my new awareness of the wisdom of supporting local agriculture, I called last week and made arrangements to buy a dozen eggs produced about a mile from home. I even stopped on my way to another errand, so I didn't have to make a special trip.

The proprietor wasn't around when I picked up my eggs, leaving my payment in the honor system box, but I hope to chat with him soon so I can learn something about poultry husbandry. It feels good to eat food that comes from close to home, knowing the good people who grew it, and knowing the birds weren't abused or force-fed chemicals.

More Reasons To Eat Local

Good grief.

I just heard a piece on the radio about how Chinese honey is finding it's way to U.S. markets via other countries so they can avoid paying an import tariff. And, as so often seems the case lately, the honey is contaminated. Naturally, this honey is so much less expensive than domestic honey, that suppliers can't resist the temptation to use it. But what are the real costs? Once again, we see how we know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

Not long ago, a friend told us how Chinese tea producers dry the tea leaves by spreading them out on the ground and backing diesel trucks up so the exhaust dries the leaves. Add this to the growing list of contaminated food and pharmaceutical products coming out of China, and it seems to me we'd be better off getting our food and drugs from closer to home. OK. We won't be growing any tea in New England until global warming really gets going, so for now, we buy organic tea.

Make that VERY close to home. Even careless or greedy domestic processors can mess us up as we see with the latest contaminated peanut butter problem.

I believe in a future where so many of the things we need will come from sources closer to home. Our economic and energy problems may force this on us, but I hope we see the day when we understand that life is better that way.